3C4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



of a drawback, which the Euglish sugar-refiners estimated at 39 cents 

 per 100 pounds. This drawback having been reduced by the Treas- 

 ury Department to 17 cents, the exports for the succeeding year, 

 1885-'86, at once fell off to 104,339,000 pounds. 



The experiences that have followed this attempt, on the part of 

 practical statesmen, to interfere with the natural progress and develop- 

 ment of a great industry, constitutes one of the most instructive chap- 

 ters in all economic history. Judged from certain standpoints, the 

 bounty system, as applied to beet-root sugar, has been unquestionably 

 most successful. It has increased the aggregate product of this variety 

 of sugar so rapidly that, in place of constituting 20 per cent of the 

 whole sugar-product of the world, as it did in 1860, it now represents 

 at least 56 per cent of such aggregate. This artificially increased 

 product of sugar has so far exceeded the current demands of the world 

 for the consumption of this commodity, that sugar now ranks, in point 

 of retail value, with such articles as oatmeal, barley, and flour ; and it 

 has even been proposed that it should be utilized as food for cattle, or 

 as a fertilizer in competition with artificial manures. Comparing 

 wholesale prices, sugar was 114 per cent higher in 1880 than the first 

 half of 1887. Such a reduction in the price of a prime necessity of 

 life has been of immense advantage to consumers. In Great Britain, 

 whose policy since 1874 has been to give her people sugar free of taxa- 

 tion, the per capita consumption has risen from 56 pounds in that year 

 to 75 pounds in 1880 (as compared with a per capita of about 54 

 pounds in the United States in 1885); while the saving to the British 

 people, from the reduction of the cost of this one item of their liv- 

 ing, in the single year of 1886, has been estimated by a good authority 

 (Mr. Samuel Montague, M. P.) as high as £11,000,000 (155,000,000). 

 Again, the bounty policy developed a large local industry in many of 

 the states of Continental Europe, and for a time paid enormous profits 

 to manufacturers and refiners producing for export, as is believed to be 

 yet the case in France, and which has recently increased its duties on 

 the imports, and its bounties on the exports, of sugar, and which latter 

 are now three times greater than those paid by Germany. During 

 the year 1886 the profits of the two leading sugar-refiners of France 

 from export bounties, exclusive of their domestic trade, were reported 

 as about £450,000 ($2,225,000) each ; but how much of this they were 

 required to part with in order to force, through reduced prices, the 

 sales of their product in other countries, is, of course, not known. It 

 is claimed to have greatly injured the sugar-refining industry of Great 

 Britain ; but, on the other hand, it is declared to have given a great 

 impetus to the business of manufacturing confectionery, preserved 

 fruits, jams, etc., in that country ; industries which have given em- 

 ployment to many more persons than were ever occupied in refining 

 sugar. 



But there is another side to this picture. Under the influence of 



